Various card games, including collectible card games, simulate fantasy or science fiction battles. For example, players may collect cards denoted with attack and defense points or special abilities, and play cards in successive rounds to “attack” (e.g. simulating combat by subtracting an attacking card's attack points from an opposing card's defense points, with a negative result triggering removal of the opposing card). The unknowns and complexity of combat are thus reduced down to two numbers.
However, such simple implementations do not apply to simulations of sports games. Because sports involve real-world players and statistics and are readily played and watched by consumers, users may demand greater realism in simulations than can be provided in simple attack/defense number comparisons.
Similarly, computerized versions of collectible card games and board games are typically identical to the physical game to which they correspond, and as a result similarly lack realistic simulations of sports games. Conversely, computerized sports games typically attempt to simulate real sports in exacting detail, frequently requiring memorization of dozens of input combinations for various actions (e.g. throw a ball to a first receiver vs. to a second receiver vs. to the first receiver, but leading him vs. to the first receiver, but trailing him, etc.), and as a result are highly complex and unintuitive for players.